How to Get My Husband on My Side

Anyhow, he was undoubtedly a strange man.

Despite the way Cesare obsessed over me and clung to me, he didn’t show the slightest hesitation using me as a pawn in his political schemes. For all I know, maybe he just thought of me as another one of his objects.

Three years ago, when I’d just gotten accustomed to the fact that I’d become fifteen year-old Rudbeckia, I made the mistake of refusing my arranged marriage to the Duke of Rembrandt.

With the foreknowledge that the duke would later become a key figure in the demise of my family, I invalidated our marriage right before the wedding was scheduled to happen using the humiliating pretense of ‘bodily incompatibility’.

I wanted to do whatever I could to protect my new family that had treated me so well and stop whatever enemies would later plot against them.

But as soon as I expressed my unwillingness to marry him, Father’s usual warm expression morphed into an ice-cold frown that made my body tremble with fear in a way I was all too familiar with. That night I was locked in my room and beaten by Cesare until I nearly passed out from pain.

It was after those events repeated themselves a couple times that I realized there was no difference between my old and new life. Maybe, in part, that was also because I knew that Rudbeckia wasn’t actually the pope’s biological daughter.

Rudbeckia’s biological mother—my mother—was killed as soon as she gave birth, before the pope met his second official lover, Carmen. Most people around me were already suspicious that I wasn’t the pope’s legitimate child, and, well, since I’d already read the story myself, I knew their suspicions were correct.

Putting on a facade and pretending to be family with people that didn’t share a drop of blood with me, it was identical to my previous life. And after I became Rudbeckia, my anorexia manifested itself again as well.

“It hurts me to see you go too. This’ll be the last time something like this happens, I promise,” said Cesare.

“But I heard it’s dangerous there…”

“Dangerous? You’ll be guarded around-the-clock by a legion of elite knights, you have nothing to worry about. I’ll try to come visit you as often as I can too. It won’t be that bad, every place has something to like about it. Just think of it as a six-month-long vacation.”

“Six months? It’s really going to be six months?”

I already knew exactly how long it was going to be but I pretended to be surprised anyway.

He chuckled and wrapped a lock of my hair around his finger, pulling it up to his nose.

“Yeah, you just have to make it six months. He won’t do anything to you regardless, so you don’t need to worry.”

That wasn’t what I was worried about.

“You’ll really come visit me often?”

“Yeah.”

I prayed that he wouldn’t.

to not kill me was going to be difficult enough as it was. Even if I refused to poison his little sister, someone else would

had to start by convincing my husband and the other

than how I’d been forced to act

***

Izek van Omerta.

his father’s legendary martial arts technique, he was given the title of knight at fifteen years old and at age seventeen was crowned the kingdom’s

people, but, because of his stubborn, headstrong

Omerta, and his childhood friend, Flaya van Brianna. If I remember correctly, his standoffish personality was, in large part, due to

love with the duke, but after she became the duchess of Omerta and gave birth, she ended up killing herself while her children were still young. It seems like

for eternal damnation, so their

that my memory of a lot of the story was vague at best. I wish

Izek had obediently accepted his marriage with Rudbeckia wasn’t due to any sort of coercion from his father, it was because Ellenia had

barbarians on their northern border, and, with

Britannia’s elite knights—that was the point of these political

dinner, Father worked at lightning speed to prepare the wedding. A huge dowry and an assortment of elaborate gifts were sent to Britannia, and after my marriage was made official with

***

every time I looked in the mirror I was still startled by the unfamiliar woman

hair was a cascade of spiraling gold threads. Her eyes were shining blue lakes. Her supple cheeks and tender lips didn’t resemble my original body

was a child, I was always sensitive about how I looked different than the other kids around me, but, funnily enough, there are times now when I miss my

a warm smile, pulling me towards him

of this world, a fully-grown adult, but I was still considered and treated like a child in many ways. Like how Cesare would always sit

to make a wonderful bride, my darling. The North will love

“Father…”

Don’t cry, my

time we ever saw each other.

chuckled seeing my delicate face covered in

to miss you

brother to accompany you

scary enough seeing the visitors from the North watch our family like vultures. Did Father really not care about the rumors they would spread

I the only one who’s upset

“Enzo.”

Come here

been kicking the dirt and sulking by himself, hugged me tightly. Despite Enzo’s fiery temper and all the mischief he caused, I never felt

“I’ll miss you.”

miss you too,